Connecticut Takes New Approach To Traffic Congestion

By John Christoffersen

Associated Press

STAMFORD — To skeptics, the state’s new Transportation Strategy Board may be just another bureaucracy. But an influential consultant believes Connecticut is steering the nation toward a new approach to an old problem.

In a seven-part series called “Gridlock State,” The Associated Press reported in December that overloaded highways in Connecticut have made commuting increasingly difficult and dangerous, and threaten to make the state an “economic cul-de-sac.”

During the legislative session that ended last month, lawmakers created the 15-member oversight board charged with developing a 10-year plan to ease traffic congestion.

The effort is expected to lead to dramatic changes in how people and goods are moved in Connecticut. High-speed commuter ferries, freight barges, and a new train service are among the projects under study.

The board will look at the entire transportation system in an effort to create better links between buses, trains, cars, airports, and seaports. For the first time, it will consider ways to coordinate economic development and transportation projects by examining the effects each has on the others.

The board’s mission marks a departure from a traditional approach to congestion, which considered modes of transportation separately and typically reacted to traffic jams by expanding highways, said Michael Gallis, a transportation consultant.

“It’s the first time in America that we’re actually going to look at transportation strategically,” Gallis said. “They’re going to have to create the model.”

Gallis, whose firm is based in Charlotte, N.C., issued a study warning that Connecticut could become an “economic cul-de-sac” if it does not solve its transportation crisis. That warning also applies to New England and the nation, because an integrated transportation system is increasingly important in a global economy, Gallis said.

International airports in New York, Boston, Miami, and Atlanta are not linked with mass transit, while many sea ports also lack such connections, Gallis said. Goods are increasingly transported by trucks, clogging highways that have run out of room to expand.

“I think Connecticut has taken a very vital and important first step,” Gallis said. “It is an example for the rest of the United States.”

Connecticut officials held a transportation “summit” last fall after Gallis issued his report, which was widely circulated among business leaders.

Residents share the concern, ranking traffic as the fourth biggest problem facing the state, ahead of concerns such as health care and crime, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

Lawmakers allocated $50 million for short-term transportation projects in the next two years, but ultimately expect to spend billions more.

Short-term projects include expanded bus and rail service in Fairfield County; enhanced accident clearance on Interstate 95 and the Merritt Parkway; study of peak-hour closures of I-95 on-ramps; and a study of a commuter rail line from New Haven to Hartford and Springfield, Mass.

Environmental groups welcomed the idea of the board, but said it lacks environmental representation and will be too dominated by business and government leaders. They worry it will wind up endorsing traditional approaches that could worsen Connecticut’s air pollution.

The strategy board is in the process of being assembled. Five of the 15 members will be commissioners from state agencies, including the Department of Transportation, which has been criticized for its approach to addressing congestion.

“This ends up being the same people making transportation decisions in Connecticut that have been making those same decisions for 10, 20 years,” said Dan Lorimier, spokesman for the Connecticut Fund for the Environment.

House Speaker Moira Lyons, who has championed the transportation issue, said the Department of Environmental Protection commissioner will also serve on the board. The board also will draw representation from five transportation investment areas created by the new law as a way to promote regional cooperation in transportation planning.

Lyons, D-Stamford, said the new approach should be more effective than past efforts.

“I think they can have an enormous impact,” Lyons said.

Christopher Bruhl, a business leader in Fairfield County active on the transportation issue, said the board’s impact will depend on whether elected officials provide adequate funding and implement its findings.

“It’s really a first step,” Bruhl said. “The next 18 months will tell the tale.”